31st Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions
◊ San Diego ◊

Saturday, April 16, 2011
Volume 7, Issue 4
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How to Change Your LVAD Battery While Driving a Car

      Left ventricular assist device implantation has become a routine treatment option for many patients suffering from end stage heart failure. Still, the concern about reduced quality of life—due to drugs (e.g. anti coagulants), percutaneous drive lines, and the dependence on a power connection or charged battery—remains, despite of all medical and technical progress and inventions.
      In Friday's session, "Collaborating to Promote and Enhance QOL in End Stage Organ Disease," which Drs. Samantha J. Anthony and Michael G. Petty chaired, some interesting and valuable studies concerning VAD patients were presented.
      Dr. C. Kugler from Hannover Medical School, Germany, discussed the importance of patient counseling following implantation of the assist device. In the German study, dietary intervention, physical conditioning and psychosocial support resulted in a strong positive effect on the patient's weight management, exercise tolerance and on fighting anxiety when compared to a noncounseled patient cohort.
      For many patients, driving a car is a major factor of quality of life. So far, no clear guidelines or recommendation have been stated to deal with this issue for LVAD patients. Dr. S. Emani, Ohio State University Medical Center, presented a retrospective study in which 24 LVAD patients with a valid driver's license were interviewed and asked for their current driving habits. Only 5 of those admitted that their doctor told them not to drive, 19 are currently driving with an LVAD. During the accumulated 438 month of LVAD treatment, no accidents were reported by the study participants. Interestingly, 3 patients had to change the LVAD battery while driving in the car.
      Yesterday's session offered insightful perspective on the patient's life after the patient leaves the hospital, which surgeons are not confronted with too often. It demonstrated the need for post-hospital stay professional guidance and illustrated the benefit that a patient can gain from it to improve his personal quality of life and remain an active, content individual.

Don't Miss Today's Closing Plenary
2:15pm in Sapphire D

This afternoon's Closing Plenary Session chaired by Drs. Stuart Sweet and Lori West will feature a Keynote Lecture, "Proteomics/Novel Diagnostics in Tranplantation," by Dr. Daniel Salomon of The Scripps Research Insitute in La Jolla, CA. Dr. Francis Delmonico, Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital will discuss emerging public policy initiatives for promoting organ donation. Hear a summary of the meeting in "What's Hot and What's Cool" followed by a spirited "Supersize Me" debate regarding the proposition: "Obestity is NOT a Contraindication to Thoracic Replacement Therapy."

This issue of the conference coverage newsletter was supported by a grant from:

The Future of Thoracic Transplant Fast Approaching

      Yesterday's plenary session, "Gazing Into the Crystal Ball – Emerging Therapy in Thoracic Transplantation," was action-packed with five presentations looking into the future to predict emerging therapies in thoracic transplantation and allied technologies.
      The first presentation was by Dr. David S. Wilkes, who emphasized that immunosuppression is not a "one-size-fits-all," especially since baseline graft status affects the future development of acute chronic rejection. He predicted that we will develop tools that will potentially increase tolerance and can be used in conjunction with ex-vivo lung perfusion.
      Dr. Michael Huber then spoke about transplantation versus MCS as treatment for survivors of congenital heart disease. Although MCS is as successful as BTT, and likely to improve further in coming years, Dr. Huber stressed that currently transplantation is associated with the best outcomes.
      The session continued with Dr. Eduardo Marban, who presented, "Cell Based Alternatives to MCS: Reconstruction Ahead?" He reported that although many other cell lines have not lived up to the hype, cardiosphere-derived cells are showing significant promise with early results from the CADUCES trial.
      Potential ex-vivo therapies for organs were the topic of the next discussion by Dr. Shaf Keshavjee. He described how multiple etiologies of lung dysfunction could be corrected using this platform, and concluded his presentation with promising preclinical results for IL-10 gene therapy.
      Dr. Joseph B. Zwischenberger finished out the session with review of how much better artificial pulmonary support has become, and predicted it will improve further in the near future based on simple predictable device improvements.